A First Look at Windows 8

Wednesday Sep 14th 2011 by Cynthia Harvey

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Developers get a sneak peak at the next version of Microsoft's flagship operating system at the BUILD conference.

The big news at the Microsoft BUILD conference for developers is the unveiling of Windows 8. As expected, the new operating system features two different interfaces—the "Metro" interface for touchscreens and the traditional interface for keyboard/mouse interactions. However, Microsoft is clearly emphasizing Metro-style apps, which means that Windows developers better start learning JavaScript and HTML5.

The new Metro interface looks a lot like Windows Phone 7. If the screen size is large enough, users can display two Metro-style apps at the same time, but interestingly, Metro won't provide the option of the overlapping Windows that gave Windows its name.